The Schnauzer Pack

Albert von Stocker's

DOB: Jan 10, 1994
Breed: Standard Schnauzer
Owner: KC
Occupation: Search and Rescue, Pack Alpha
Relations: Sire of Jack, Klipson, and Sky

Pictures:

Albert and Gairda (age 8)
Albert and Sampson (age 9)
Albert Professional 1 (age 2)
Albert Professional 2 (same as on this page)
Albert From Top (age 9)
Albert Side View (age 9)

History:

In the fall of 1993 my best bud, Brody, had to be put down due to his declining health. After that, Gairda decided that she didn't care about anything anymore. She hardly ate, slept all day in the chair, and refused to play. In January of '94 my father found out that he had cataracts in both of his eyes and needed to have surgery done immediately. Our house looked pitiful - my father laid out on the couch with a patch on one eye and Gairda looking mournful from the chair. Little did we know that our savior was about to enter our lives.

After Brody had passed on, my mother started looking for a Standard Schnauzer to help fill the void. During her search she found Luceil Warren, owner of Von Stocker's kennels. My mother liked the way Luceil ran her kennel and decided to purchase a pup from her. Albert's litter was born on January 10, 1994 to Von Stocker's Hellon Wheels and Von Stocker's Levi Strouss. Eight weeks later we where driving down to Oregon to pick him up.

Gairda first met Albert at my father's parents house. She thought he was fun to play with but gave us a funny look when we didn't leave him there. Over the next two weeks Albert would jump at Gairda and pull at her beard while she lay in her chair until she would get annoyed and attack him. After a bit more work on Albert's part he had her running all over the house and yard playing tag. During those same weeks he forced my dad to get up off of the couch and to start doing things (something the doctors told him he should be doing). Everyone in the house was much happier.

I started taking Albert to obedience classes as soon as he had all of his shots. I had decided on taking AKC obedience because I wanted to show my puppy. We did one year of 4-H showing together and then gave up on that since there was way to much politics going on. So we started our short career of AKC confirmation. Talk about politics! There was no way a 13 year old girl and her puppy - no matter how good his confirmation. - where going to beat any dog handled professionally. Everyone said that once Albert started winning nothing would stop him. The key word being "started". We only won ribbons because there where so few males and sometimes he was the only Standard at the show. After a while I started to dislike the shows because we never won anything, even when once we where up against a pudgy, too short female - she won because her handler was buddy buddy with the judge. Albert took the cue from me and started disliking the shows as well. So we quit.

While we where showing conformation we continued doing obedience classes. Albert was very good at it and I enjoyed it. We did a few competitions while we where still on the show circuit but they didn't work out too well. I guess I really didn't give it much of a chance as we only did 3 I think. The reason we stopped was because a friend of mine told me about Search and Rescue. I like helping people so I decided to go to the training. While at one of the Search and Rescue conferences I got in contact with people from the Bloodhound Search and Rescue group near my area. We started training with them and they told us we could not show Albert and be in Search and Rescue at the same time (they didn't know Standard Schnauzers well and we where still learning). So we stopped the obedience competitions and classes to focus on search training. Albert took to the training quickly.

Within a year of starting training (Albert was about 2 at this time) we where ready to start the certification process to make him an official search dog. This was when things started to go wrong for us. The Bloodhound group had 2 divisions - one in eastern Washington and one in western. The eastern division decided that the group would no longer certify non-Bloodhound dogs. The western group had to go along even though some of their top dogs where not Bloodhounds. So, we where told we could train with them but not certify, which didn't make much sense to me.

The search began to find someone who would certify a 14 year old girl and her dog. Not many people took us seriously and most groups wouldn't accept anyone under the age of 18. Eventually we found one trainer, Rita, in a county many hours away from ours. She was at school at the time so my parents talked to her over the phone and we kept training on our own with her help. When she returned from college we where invited to go down and train with them on a weekend. We packed up our bags and took the 3-4 hour trip to the training area. The people of Grays Harbor Search Dogs where really nice and accepted me and Albert. That day we did work on Cadaver searching and a bit of trailing. Albert and I enjoyed the day and where excited about being able to come back down again and finally having a change to certify.

The excitement didn't last long. The next weekend there was a large search in the mountains and Grays Harbor Search Dogs was called out to help. They where bringing the dogs up the mountain by helicopter so they wouldn't have to make the long hike up. The helicopter that was carrying Rita and her dog crashed. Rita was killed instantly but her dog escaped uninjured. I was devastated. It wasn't just that I lost someone that I knew but that she had been my only hope of certifying Albert so that we could go out and help people. I had almost given up hope but my parents where persistent. I hadn't done all that training for nothing.

My father, at this time very active in Explorer Search and Rescue (the group that searches without the aid of dogs, also known as Ground Pounders). He had become good friends with the Search and Rescue Deputy from the Sheriff's department and asked him to test us. Deputy Sprague agreed and had the Sheriff's dog trainer set up a trail for us. The trail ended up going through a soccer field, 2 residential complexes, across roads, through woods, along trails, along railroad tracks, up steep banks, and finally into a sticker berry patch where the subject was picking berries with his wife and baby. Albert did the trail flawlessly and identified the subject correctly. We where given the go ahead to attend searched in our county as an independent resource called in conjunction with Kitsap County Explorer Search and Rescue.

Since then Albert has become widely known among the Search Dog community in Washington State. He has lead to the finding of many people and became a valuable asset to Kitsap County. It wasn't long before Albert was invited to neighboring counties to help with searches there. For a long time he was the only sent discriminating (trailing) search dog in 5 counties. My parents had learned a lot getting me through all of this and when Sampson and Loni came into our lives they where introduced to the search game and they both love it.

Albert has such a nice personality, wonderful confirmation, and he's really smart. I really wanted to breed him so that I had the chance of getting the qualities I wanted in my next dog. In 2001, I finally found someone that was willing to breed to a dog who didn't have his championship. Donna owned a beautiful Standard by the name of Marika. Both dogs where alike in looks, disposition, and intelligence. Albert and Marika have had 2 litters - the first consisting of Jack and Klipson, and the second consisting of Skye (or what ever his name ends up being). Albert's oldest boys are almost cookie cutter copies of Albert in their mannerisms, habits and everything I wanted to keep. I am really proud of Albert and his sons.

Today, Albert lazes around at my parent house while I have been away at college and now awaiting my fiancé to finish college. I will likely never take him back from my parents because by the time I get a house he can come live in with me he will be 12 years old. I don't want to take him from the house he has known his whole life and his pack. I really miss him but I go visit often and he is always happy to see me.